January 22, 2011

I had a strange dream last night:

The humidity is rude. Rotting wood and stagnant water permeate the air around me. I notice it only slightly, so focused on this photo album I am flipping through. On each page is a portrait of something or someone with a caption stating “SAVED”, “NOT SAVED”, “YET TO BE” at the bottom of the portrait. I turn the page slowly and a warm gust blows in my face…..I stare at the picture and everything around me becomes quiet. The portrait of a young elephant is staring back at me, it’s face decorated in tribal paint. I nostalgically run my hand over it, able to feel the rough texture of it’s skin. The album floats away from my hands and hovers over the swamp. The elephant climbs out of the picture, using it’s limbs like a human would, and trots over to me, rolling onto its back. I hop down next to it and rub the elephant’s belly and it makes…….elephant noises (whatever those are called) and flails it’s trunk through the air, tickled by my rubbing of it’s stomach. It quickly rolls onto it’s legs and licks my face, which I find utterly disgusting, and it hastily stomps off into the haze ahead.

The lights flip on and I am in the bathroom of the house of 13 Lawrence Lane (where I grew up). My brother is in the kitchen, cooking breakfast but is is one o clock in the morning; I am getting ready for school, irrespective of the time. A crash erupts by the wall next to the bathroom door and the elephant charges in, laughing at the mess it made. I slam the bathroom door shut, intent on getting ready for school instead of playing with the animal but the door is crooked and there is a space of 4 inches between the bottom of the door and the frame, which the elephant slips his trunk through to rip the door from it’s hinges. We go back and forth, opening and closing the door for a good half hour and all the while, the bathroom faucet turns on and off in sync with the movement of the door. Eventually I become irritated and kick the door from it’s hinges and it lands in the kitchen. Before my very eyes, the elephant grows into an adult, rears it’s head and whistles, transporting me outside into a heavily wooded area with a large, green, sun soaked hill off in the distance.

Another animal sound grabs my attention, a guttural and chewing kind of noise. Behind me stands a baby rhinoceros, slowly moving it’s head up and down. I smile at it and run away. It makes a squeak noise and runs after me. We play a game of cat and mouse for a long time and I trick it by running around a large tree, keeping it between us. The rhinoceros becomes mildly irritated at the tactic, stops, rubs it’s little horn against the base of the tree, causing the roots to lift the tree up, allowing it to pass under. It charges at me and knocks me over, trampling over me. As it runs me over, I yell out to my brother that I am going to die. That just isn’t true, because I stand up unharmed when I am free from the peer pressure of it’s legs. The lighting in the sky changes abruptly and a loud sizzling sound precedes the sun as it slams into the ground. Everything stops moving, holding still as if a “pause” button was pressed. I wake up.